Cygnets, Young Swans

Swans feature strongly in mythology. In Greek mythology, the story Leda and the Swan recounts that Helen Troy was conceived in a union Zeus disguised as a swan and Leda, Queen Sparta. Other references in classical literature include the belief that upon death the otherwise silent Mute Swan would sing beautifully - hence the phrase swan song; as well as Juvenal's sarcastic reference to a good woman being a "rare bird, as rare on earth as a black swan", from which we get the Latin phrase rara avis, rare bird.
The Irish legend the Children Lir is about a stepmother transforming her children into swans for 900 years. In the legend The Wooing Etain, the king the Sidhe (subterranean-dwelling, supernatural beings) transforms himself and the most beautiful woman in Ireland, Etain, into swans to escape from the king Ireland and Ireland's armies. The swan has recently been depicted on an Irish commemorative coin.
In Norse mythology, there are two swans that drink from the sacred Well Urd in the realm Asgard, home the gods. According to the Prose Edda, the water this well is so pure and holy that all things that touch it turn white, including this original pair swans and all others descended from them. The poem Volundarkvida, or the Lay Volund, part the Poetic Edda, also features swan maidens.
In the Finnish epic Kalevala, a swan lives in the Tuoni river located in Tuonela, the underworld realm the dead. According to the story, whoever killed a swan would perish as well. Jean Sibelius composed the Lemminkäinen Suite based on Kalevala, with the second piece entitled Swan Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen). Today, five flying swans are the symbol the Nordic Countries and the whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus) is the national bird Finland.